gencat(1p) — Linux manual page
GENCAT(1P) POSIX Programmer's Manual GENCAT(1P)
PROLOG
This manual page is part of the POSIX Programmer's Manual. The
Linux implementation of this interface may differ (consult the
corresponding Linux manual page for details of Linux behavior),
or the interface may not be implemented on Linux.
NAME
gencat — generate a formatted message catalog
SYNOPSIS
gencat catfile msgfile...
DESCRIPTION
The gencat utility shall merge the message text source file
msgfile into a formatted message catalog catfile. The file
catfile shall be created if it does not already exist. If catfile
does exist, its messages shall be included in the new catfile.
If set and message numbers collide, the new message text defined
in msgfile shall replace the old message text currently contained
in catfile.
OPTIONS
None.
OPERANDS
The following operands shall be supported:
catfile A pathname of the formatted message catalog. If '-' is
specified, standard output shall be used. The format of
the message catalog produced is unspecified.
msgfile A pathname of a message text source file. If '-' is
specified for an instance of msgfile, standard input
shall be used. The format of message text source files
is defined in the EXTENDED DESCRIPTION section.
STDIN
The standard input shall not be used unless a msgfile operand is
specified as '-'.
INPUT FILES
The input files shall be text files.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
The following environment variables shall affect the execution of
gencat:
LANG Provide a default value for the internationalization
variables that are unset or null. (See the Base
Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Section 8.2,
Internationalization Variables for the precedence of
internationalization variables used to determine the
values of locale categories.)
LC_ALL If set to a non-empty string value, override the values
of all the other internationalization variables.
LC_CTYPE Determine the locale for the interpretation of
sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for
example, single-byte as opposed to multi-byte
characters in arguments and input files).
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the locale that should be used to affect the
format and contents of diagnostic messages written to
standard error.
NLSPATH Determine the location of message catalogs for the
processing of LC_MESSAGES.
ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS
Default.
STDOUT
The standard output shall not be used unless the catfile operand
is specified as '-'.
STDERR
The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.
OUTPUT FILES
None.
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
The content of a message text file shall be in the format defined
as follows. Note that the fields of a message text source line
are separated by a single <blank> character. Any other <blank>
characters are considered to be part of the subsequent field.
$set n comment
This line specifies the set identifier of the following
messages until the next $set or end-of-file appears.
The n denotes the set identifier, which is defined as a
number in the range [1, {NL_SETMAX}] (see the
<limits.h> header defined in the Base Definitions
volume of POSIX.1‐2017). The application shall ensure
that set identifiers are presented in ascending order
within a single source file, but need not be
contiguous. Any string following the set identifier
shall be treated as a comment. If no $set directive is
specified in a message text source file, all messages
shall be located in an implementation-defined default
message set NL_SETD (see the <nl_types.h> header
defined in the Base Definitions volume of
POSIX.1‐2017).
$delset n comment
This line deletes message set n from an existing
message catalog. The n denotes the set number [1,
{NL_SETMAX}]. Any string following the set number
shall be treated as a comment.
$ comment A line beginning with '$' followed by a <blank> shall
be treated as a comment.
m message-text
The m denotes the message identifier, which is defined
as a number in the range [1, {NL_MSGMAX}] (see the
<limits.h> header). The message-text shall be stored in
the message catalog with the set identifier specified
by the last $set directive, and with message identifier
m. If the message-text is empty, and a <blank> field
separator is present, an empty string shall be stored
in the message catalog. If a message source line has a
message number, but neither a field separator nor
message-text, the existing message with that number (if
any) shall be deleted from the catalog. The application
shall ensure that message identifiers are in ascending
order within a single set, but need not be contiguous.
The application shall ensure that the length of
message-text is in the range [0, {NL_TEXTMAX}] (see the
<limits.h> header).
$quote n This line specifies an optional quote character c,
which can be used to surround message-text so that
trailing <space> characters or null (empty) messages
are visible in a message source line. By default, or if
an empty $quote directive is supplied, no quoting of
message-text shall be recognized.
Empty lines in a message text source file shall be ignored. The
effects of lines starting with any character other than those
defined above are implementation-defined.
Text strings can contain the special characters and escape
sequences defined in the following table:
┌───────────────────┬────────┬──────────┐
│ Description │ Symbol │ Sequence │
├───────────────────┼────────┼──────────┤
│ <newline> │ NL(LF) │ \n │
│ Horizontal-tab │ HT │ \t │
│ <vertical-tab> │ VT │ \v │
│ <backspace> │ BS │ \b │
│ <carriage-return> │ CR │ \r │
│ <form-feed> │ FF │ \f │
│ Backslash │ \ │ \\ │
│ Bit pattern │ ddd │ \ddd │
└───────────────────┴────────┴──────────┘
The escape sequence "\ddd" consists of <backslash> followed by
one, two, or three octal digits, which shall be taken to specify
the value of the desired character. If the character following a
<backslash> is not one of those specified, the <backslash> shall
be ignored.
A <backslash> followed by a <newline> is also used to continue a
string on the following line. Thus, the following two lines
describe a single message string:
1 This line continues \
to the next line
which shall be equivalent to:
1 This line continues to the next line
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values shall be returned:
0 Successful completion.
>0 An error occurred.
CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS
Default.
The following sections are informative.
APPLICATION USAGE
Message catalogs produced by gencat are binary encoded, meaning
that their portability cannot be guaranteed between different
types of machine. Thus, just as C programs need to be recompiled
for each type of machine, so message catalogs must be recreated
via gencat.
EXAMPLES
None.
RATIONALE
None.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
None.
SEE ALSO
iconv(1p)
The Base Definitions volume of POSIX.1‐2017, Chapter 8,
Environment Variables, limits.h(0p), nl_types.h(0p)
COPYRIGHT
Portions of this text are reprinted and reproduced in electronic
form from IEEE Std 1003.1-2017, Standard for Information
Technology -- Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX), The
Open Group Base Specifications Issue 7, 2018 Edition, Copyright
(C) 2018 by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers, Inc and The Open Group. In the event of any
discrepancy between this version and the original IEEE and The
Open Group Standard, the original IEEE and The Open Group
Standard is the referee document. The original Standard can be
obtained online at http://www.opengroup.org/unix/online.html .
Any typographical or formatting errors that appear in this page
are most likely to have been introduced during the conversion of
the source files to man page format. To report such errors, see
https://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/reporting_bugs.html .
IEEE/The Open Group 2017 GENCAT(1P)
Pages that refer to this page: nl_types.h(0p), iconv(1p)